The People You Meet
by KelinciHutan
Summary: Maria Jackson had had just about enough of aliens for the one day, thank you. Especially since these aliens had succeeded in stealing them from Earth. Fortunately for her, she and the boys weren't the only prisoners they were holding.


**Spoilers**: Absolutely none at all.  
**Disclaimer**: _Doctor Who_ and _The Sarah Jane Adventures_ and related characters and situations are the property of the BBC. No money changed hands and no copyright infringement is intended or implied.  
**Author's Notes**: This doesn't really go anywhere in the SJA canon. Post season 1, maybe? But totally spoiler-free. In DW, it's somewhere between seaons 3 and 4, and is indifferent to "Voyage Of The Damned." I guess it's more a "what-if" scenario.  
For the distance research, I looked up "parsec." The known universe is scary big. D:

* * *

Maria Jackson had had just about enough of aliens for the one day, thank you. Not that she thought _all_ aliens were bad or anything, but when the only ones you ever encountered were always trying to blow up your planet or steal you off of it, it tended to put you on your guard.

Especially since these aliens had succeeded in stealing them from Earth.

Two-hundred-eighty-six megaparsecs away. Luke had apparently done some math in his head when they'd found that bit out. What he told them it came to was they would never get back home. They were in another galaxy. A long way away from their own galaxy.

A _really_ long way away.

And they had no Sonic Lipstick, no Mister Smith, no Sarah Jane, and virtually no hope of getting out of this cage and back to the teleporter, which, being as the ship had moved, was now in a different relative location to Earth. There was every chance it might not even work anymore.

And these aliens were even worse than most! Now the teens were just locked in a cage in a dark room, to be "fattened up," apparently. Even though they were about to be alone in a large dark room, Maria was so glad as their captor swept away. Those orange brows and gray freckles were incredibly frightening somehow.

Clyde was less restrained. They'd been flung into this crate in a heap, but Clyde bounced up like it hadn't even hurt. "Let us out of here!" He shook the bars so hard they rattled.

Maria and Luke stayed seated. The ceiling was only about four feet and they didn't want to risk head injury by flinging themselves around.

"Oh, yes. Yell at them. That'll make them sorry they ever kidnapped you," a mild voice said from across the narrow hallway.

Clyde leaped back from the bars of their cell. "Who's there?" he demanded. The three teens huddled together in the dark of the back of their crate. Maria found the boys' hands and held on.

The three of them peered across the space between their cell and the facing one. A narrow face with messy brown hair appeared out of the murk, blinking back at them. A human face.

"You've got nothing to be afraid of from me, kids," the man said. He leaned against the bars of his cell. All Maria could see of him was a lot of brown clothes and that he was obviously lanky. "Come on. May as well get to know each other."

"What's your name?" Luke demanded from

"Ian Chesterton."

The three of them maintained a very stubborn silence. They'd learned better than to just trust friendly faces.

"Come on. You've got to have names at least."

Maria squeezed Luke and Clyde's hands briefly before saying, "My name's Maria. Clyde was the one shouting. Luke's with us, too."

They hesitated a moment more and then moved forwards so that Chesterton could see them properly.

"Well, Maria, Clyde, and Luke, where are you from?"

After a moment's thought Luke replied. "London."

"Long way from home." Chesterton was looking a little less friendly and a little more annoyed.

"We didn't mean to get caught!" Clyde snapped. "How're we meant to know they'd have a teleporter?"

"And what, exactly, were the three of you doing involving yourself with aliens, anyway? How old are you?"

"Oi! I'm fifteen!"

Chesterton exhaled and looked a little sad. "Fifteen." He shook his head. "What were these aliens doing, anyway?"

"Running a gourmet restaurant," Maria sighed unhappily.

Luke was turning green. "I'm going to be sick. Those disappearances…the new dishes on their menu…"

Maria gasped and Clyde's hold on the bars tightened.

"Androgums," Chesterton said. "They live by one of the most disgusting laws of the known universe. 'The pursuit of pleasure is the sole motive for action.' And they take a lot of pleasure from food. They've got cookbooks for dishes using almost every species they've ever encountered."

He refocused on the three of them, piercing them with a very serious brown-eyed gaze. "They used to be slave workers in the Third Zone of your galaxy. But when that empire fell apart, they were able to return to their home planet, Androgama. Now they go around the universe, trying new flavors—when they aren't at war with each other. They seem to like sentient life-forms best." He paused thoughtfully. "This lot, the Ocine Grig, are particularly nasty."

Maria was trying not to panic. Clyde was failing in his efforts, to judge by how fast his breath was coming in Maria's ear.

"How do you know all this?" Luke's question gave the other two something to focus on, and Maria turned her eyes onto Chesterton with desperate curiosity.

"Oh!" The man's face brightened into an unreasonably huge grin. "Didn't I mention? I'm _not_ from Earth."

He started rummaging through his pockets, pulling out a banana and some string before he emerged with a pair of women's hair pins. He reached around the bars of his crate and after a few moments of struggling was out and kneeling by the opening to theirs. A few moments later and they were all free.

Maria took a good look at Chesterton for the first time. He was tall and unreasonably skinny. And he was wearing a really cheap-looking, brown, pinstripe suit, too, and a long brown coat over that.

"Well, come on! Time for you to go home, I think," he said.

"Mr. Chesterton, wait! We should see if there's anyone else stuck in here," Luke said.

Maria's uneasiness at the situation in general shot up several notches as soon as Luke said that, but a quick search revealed no one else imprisoned, so the three of them had little other choice but to follow Chesterton.

The ship was dark, dank, and more than a little creepy. They only had to duck guards one time. Chesterton shoved Luke hard into Clyde and the two of them fell into an alcove on one side of the hallway. He grabbed her into one on the opposite side.

Three huge Androgums (they had to weigh one hundred kilos of solid muscle) walked not two feet away from where Maria and Chesterton were hiding. Maria forced herself to breathe evenly and when Chesterton's hand squeezed her shoulder encouragingly, she felt a little comforted.

The Androgums passed and they kept on, until Chesterton suddenly turned a corner and pulled open the door to something he'd hidden in one of the alcoves. "In here," he said quietly.

"There's no space to fit all four of us," Clyde protested.

Chesterton opened his mouth to say something when a klaxon suddenly sounded. "Looks like we've been missed. In you get!"

Maria caught sight of an Androgum down the hallway, and she, Luke, and Clyde barreled through the door, and into an impossibly large room. Chesterton ducked inside, closed the door, and then threw the deadbolt, as if he just wanted to be sure. Maria gazed up at him curiously.

"No need for concern. They could bring in a battering ram. They'd still never get through that door," Chesterton assured her with a pat on the shoulder. He threw his coat over something that looked like a coral tree and strode confidently to the center of the room where a large, round array of instruments waited.

Maria was taking proper stock of where they were. The room was huge, and greeny-gold, with those weird coral trees in a circle around them. The three of them were still standing on a little ramp that led up to a platform around that big central control panel. Luke took the first steps forward.

"Well, come on up," Chesterton said to them, sounding impatient. "Everyone always wants to watch this bit." They came up the ramp, but stayed well away from Chesterton.

"What's got into you lot, then?" Chesterton demanded.

"You're alien," Luke said.

"Yes," Chesterton nodded. "Yes, I am."

"A minute ago, we were on _those_ aliens' spaceship. Now we're on yours," Clyde agreed. "How do we know you're a friend?"

Chesterton blinked, a little bit of his confident swagger seemed to fall away. "Sorry. This must be a bad day for you. I promise you, I'm taking you back home, if you'll tell me where to take you to."

After exchanging a few glances, Luke said, "13 Bannerman Road, Ealing."

Chesterton nodded, ran around that big console, playing with switches and at last threw a lever. An odd grinding noise filled the air as something inside the column above the console began to piston up and down.

The three of them exchanged another glance but this time simply fell silent. Chesterton didn't say anything either, so the silence grew more and more awkward as time went by. Maria got the bizarre impression that Chesterton was enjoying their discomfiture.

About fifteen very unusual minutes later, the central column stopped moving and the grinding noise cycled to a halt.

"Here we go, 13 Bannerman Road, Ealing, London," Chesterton announced, heading to the door and taking his coat. He threw on the coat, opened the door, and poked his head out. "Perfect landing. I get it right sometimes." He walked out.

Maria, Luke, and Clyde exchanged another glance, but they followed Chesterton out, and emerged—to their very great surprise—into the sunshine of the little garden behind Luke's house. It was fenced in and so out-of-sight to anyone from the road.

Maria and the boys turned around and saw a small, blue box with the words, "Police Public Call Box" glowing at her from the top. She whipped around to stare at Chesterton, who simply gave the three of them a smile before saying, "Come on."

He strode up to the back door of the house and knocked. "Sarah? Are you home?"

Sarah Jane Smith opened the door and Maria would never forget what happened next.

"Doctor!"

Maria's brain felt like it had turned upside down. Doctor? _The_ Doctor? The alien, time-traveller, crazy, amazing Doctor that they all heard stories about? _That_ Doctor? And he was just standing there, looking for all the world like any other person.

Sarah looked like she was about to give him a hug when she spotted them. "Luke!" She rushed over to her son, pulling him into a tight hug. "When the Adrogums…Luke are you alright?" She pulled away some to study him.

"I'm okay, Mum," Luke nodded.

Sarah turned to Maria and Clyde. "And you two?"

"All fine," the Doctor told her. "A little bit out of their depth, though. I didn't think you'd bring fifteen-year-olds into the mix here, Sarah."

Sarah smiled and said, "Sometimes there's just no stopping these young people from rushing into trouble."

The Doctor grinned and agreed, "Sometimes there isn't. You've taught them well, though. They wouldn't leave until we'd made sure we were the only prisoners."

The two of them looked Maria, Luke, and Clyde over fondly—to Maria's very great annoyance—before the Doctor said, "I have to be going. The Androgum's teleporter needs disabling. And they have my sonic screwdriver."

Sarah nodded. "We'll handle the one on this end."

The Doctor looked at her for a moment and then said, "I imagine you will." He pulled her into a hug and said, "Good-bye, Sarah Jane."

"Good-bye, Doctor," she replied. The Doctor nodded to the three teenagers and started for his ship.

"If you're ever about, stop by for tea," Sarah Jane invited.

The Doctor turned around, looking shocked, and then a slow grin spread over his face. "I think I might." He entered his ship, and that grinding noise filled the air again.

The blue box disappeared.

Maria, still not quite processing what had just happened, turned to Sarah and said, "That's a lot bigger inside than it looks."

Sarah Jane laughed. "Even more so than you realize. Come on. We've got a restaurant to close down."


End file.
